Friday, August 20, 2010

My trip to Raleigh

Yesterday I went to Raleigh to visit a friend. She needed some girl talk time and took a day off of work to de-stress. We chatted for a long time and decided to go to lunch. She bought a coupon book a few months ago that has coupons for local restaurants, coffee shops, etc. So we decided to try somewhere new. We went to Tossed. It was a bit over whelming when we walked in the door and the menu board took up a whole wall. I had the south western chicken pita with a side of hummus. It was very spicy and good.

After that we went shopping for a lamp at Bed, Bath and Beyond, I tried to return my ring to Kohl's, and we looked for furniture for her house. Then we decided to go for an afternoon snack. I narrowed it down to coffee or frozen yogurt and let her pick. So we went to Skinny Dip - another new place for both of us. It's a yogurt place that's a pay by the ounce bar. You put your own yogurt in a cup and they have a toppings bar, multiple sauces, and a wall bar of cereals and nuts etc. I got a small chocolate and peanut butter swirl with peanut butter sauce and peanut butter cup chunks. I like peanut butter.

By that time her husband got home and I was supposed to meet Roll for dinner. I got to her house and got the key from under her mat but she got stuck at work for her fantasy football draft longer than she thought she would, so I did a crossword and the Play 4 on Washington post's website. My friend gave me some other coupons for downtown restaurants and we decided to go to NoFo. The store was closed when we got there, but we had a very nice dinner. We split pork tenderloin and the duck pasta (which would have been better with chicken because I like it more, but was still good). Then we decided to go for dessert. Again I left the choice of coffee or fro-yo up to my dining partner. Again, she chose yogurt. This time we went to Local Yogurt. It was good as well, but much more hippie in the idea of the store. They only have 4 flavors and one is plain yogurt. They use cardboard cups and other stuff like that. This time I had chocolate with Reese's pieces. The chocolate was like cocoa chocolate (see aforementioned hippie reference). It was still good, but I prefer less cocoa.

After we got back to Roll's it was time for me to go home and let my dog pee etc. It started raining which is no fun. When I was about halfway home (just past Sanford and about 20 minutes from home) it down poured like I've never seen. At that point I thought to myself, "it would suck to hydroplane in this." For future reference, don't think things like that. Because no less than 5 minutes later, I did. My back tires slipped and I followed what you're supposed to do and took my foot off the gas, didn't slam on brakes and tried to just go with it. I spun in 2 complete circles on the 2 lane highway and went down into the center grass median. I was lucky as all get out - no other cars were around me when I spun, I didn't hit any trees, and the ditch wasn't cement or very deep. I went into a bit a shock at that point, but didn't cry or anything. I wasn't hurt and the truck seemed fine. I called AAA, went through an ordeal with them because they said I was a boy and tried to give me attitude while I was in a damn ditch, and was told it would be probably 55 minutes before a truck got there to pull me out. I tried to get the truck out myself and put it in 4 wheel drive, but I was a bit shaken up and apparently tried to go up the wrong side (i.e. the steeper side). At that point some pick ups arrived around me and 2 guys came down the ditch.

It was volunteer firefighters. Drivers who passed by must have called it in. They asked if I was ok, I said I was and they called off the ambulance and emergency workers. That was when I started to get embarrassed. They looked at the car and asked if I tried to get it out. I said I had, but that it felt stuck to me, but if they wanted to try, they were more than welcome. The 2 guys told me they weren't allowed to do that and that a truck would be there to winch me out. Then the big truck and some police cars with lights got there, which is when I got more embarrassed. Then one of the guys driving the big truck came down to look at mine and asked if I tried to get it out. I said yes again and gave him the offer to try. He took me up on it, backed up and went up the other side of the ditch. Which is when I got really embarrassed because I was surrounded by dudes and felt like a little girl who couldn't drive and that I was enforcing stereotypes. At least I wasn't crying. My truck was fine, they didn't write me any tickets or take my name of anything. I thanked everyone, told them I was sorry they had to come out and left.

I drove the rest of the way home under the speed limit and at around 40mph anytime it rained. But I made it without any other incidents. It was once of the scariest nights of my life. I know I'm not super into church or anything, but I do believe in a higher power and last night he was definitely watching over me.